Bookoff Group Holdings, the used-book chain that has grown into a broader secondhand retailer, disclosed in its annual securities report that Itochu Corporation now holds a 5.01% stake after buying 879,000 shares under a capital and business alliance signed February 18, 2026. The contract includes call and put options letting either side force a buyout of Itochu's stake if either party commits a material breach of the agreement or the alliance ends.
The deal is meant to do real work, not just sit on the share register. Bookoff plans to use Itochu's FamilyMart convenience-store network to widen where it collects used goods, expand its premium-service business, which includes hugall's buyback counters inside major department stores and aidect's jewelry repair and reform specialty stores, and jointly pursue overseas growth and new business lines.
The earnings underneath the alliance were strong on their own terms. Consolidated sales for the year to May 2026 rose 9.2% to ¥130.12bn, ordinary profit climbed 20.9% to ¥4.72bn, and profit attributable to owners jumped 31.5% to ¥2.763bn. Every line beat the guidance Bookoff issued in July 2025.
| Metric | Initial guidance | Actual result | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | ¥127.0bn | ¥130.12bn | +2.5% |
| Operating profit | ¥3.8bn | ¥4.405bn | +15.9% |
| Ordinary profit | ¥4.0bn | ¥4.72bn | +18.0% |
| Net profit attributable to owners | ¥2.2bn | ¥2.763bn | +25.6% |
The board is proposing a ¥36 final dividend for the year just ended, subject to shareholder approval on August 29, 2026, and plans a ¥40 payout for the following year.
Overseas, Bookoff is chasing scale on a set timetable. It runs 20 directly operated stores under the Bookoff name in the United States and 17 directly operated Jalan Jalan Japan stores in Malaysia, plus franchise outlets in Malaysia and Kazakhstan, and wants each chain to reach 30 stores by the year to May 2028 and 100 by the year to May 2033. A new subsidiary, Bookoff International, was established in March 2026 to manage that push, following the unwinding in June 2025 of a short-lived Kazakhstan joint venture whose single directly run store was handed over to a franchisee.
The filing's climate-risk section puts numbers on a threat retailers rarely quantify. Under a scenario where carbon pricing tightens, Bookoff estimates its utility bill would rise by ¥476mn a year by 2030 and ¥859mn by 2050, with transport costs up ¥161mn and ¥290mn in those same years. A harsher physical-risk scenario built around more frequent tropical disease outbreaks carries a modeled two-month sales hit of ¥3.774bn, a reminder of how exposed a store-based secondhand retailer is to foot traffic.
One detail buried in the operating narrative: Bookoff's official smartphone app passed 10.46 million members in May 2026, a base the company is leaning on to drive both loyalty spending and the buyback volumes that feed its shelves.